


Surprise! It's your son's birthday tomorrow

by spacark



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: Birthday, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacark/pseuds/spacark
Summary: Hiroto and Ryuuji last minute discover Masaki's birthday is coming up tomorrow.
Relationships: Kariya Masaki & Kiyama Tatsuya | Kiyama Hiroto | Gran & Midorikawa Ryuuji | Reize, Kiyama Tatsuya | Kiyama Hiroto | Gran/Midorikawa Ryuuji | Reize
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Surprise! It's your son's birthday tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> My original prompt was "Hiroto and/or Midorikawa realize they don't know when Masaki's birthday is and they realize this juuuust on the day that Masaki seems to behaving in big anticipation for a present or the like.................and they're afraid to ask" but as I love doing with prompts is discussing them with people until they become a little different. Enjoy!

He was the absolute worst father ever. That's what Hiroto had decided after the phone conversation that started so innocently. "Hello, is this mister Kira Hiroto? Matsukaze Tenma speaking! I asked Coach Endou for your number, sorry about that, but-"

He was the absolute worst.

Midorikawa placed the stack of papers he was holding on to on Hiroto's desk. "Boss?" He asked, raising an eyebrows at the Boss’ worried face. "Something the matter?"  
"Well, yes." Hiroto admitted. It was best Ryuuji knew about what was troubling him right away. Midorikawa looked at him intently, waiting for the follow-up. Hiroto sighed. "Matsukaze called me just now."  
"... Did anything happen to Kariya during training?"  
"No, that's not it." Hiroto sighed. If he would be even more honest, he'd admit he'd rather have that be the case. Midorikawa seemed relieved to hear Kariya was doing fine, though.

Oh, how could he explain they both failed as parents?

Hiroto scratched the nape of his neck, took a deep breath and continued. "They - the football club, they're planning a surprise party for Masaki."  
"Uhu." Midorikawa nodded, expectantly waiting for the rest of the explanation.  
"... For his birthday. Which is tomorrow."

Quiet. In a dramatic movie, this is the time the lights would go out and a thunder flash strikes and have it be the only thing that lights the room.

It was as if the flash went personified into Midorikawa. Midorikawa, who always diligently had his 'work mode' on - one that was consistent of formalities and "Boss, please get back to work." - who would never drop that, no matter the situation.

Until now.

"It's Masaki's birthday tomorrow?!" He yelled through the CEO's office, in a voice so loud it could probably be heard all through the hallway.

The both of them were ready to have a meltdown on the spot. All work matters were put aside. Although, with how much the workload would keep piling up, they decided they could only be distracted until the end of the next break, but it should be enough time to resolve this problem – was what they thought. The CEO and his beloved secretary kept their retreat in the CEO’s office room while they both tried not to panic too intensely. At first, trying to figure out why they weren’t even aware of the birthday. Had Masaki never told them? But even then, it should’ve been on the papers they got through the adoption progress. Had they really paid so little attention to it? And secondly – how would they last minute even try to get him a suitable gift?  
  
Midorikawa was already nearing his wit’s end. "What does a teenager even want for their birthday!"  
In response, Hiroto had only sighed. "Please don't look at me. I'm as clueless as you are on teenager life." The both of them went silent remembering that, _oh, of course_ they don't know what normal teenagers want to have. What were they to do now?  
"Maybe we should ask some employees for advice...? Surely someone else has a teenager child?"  
"Hiroto... We are among the youngest people in this company ourselves. What do we even say when they'd argue we're the closest to teenagers by age to begin with?"  
"... So, do we just google it?"  
"... I'll do some research."  
"Maybe I should call Matsukaze-kun back to ask what the club members got him. I'll pretend to just worry we just haven't bought the same thing? Oh, and I'll give Hitomiko a call-"  
“Stop,” Midorikawa interrupted. “One thing at a time. You should first call your sister, maybe she knows if Masaki purposely never told us.”  
“Right.” Hiroto said as he took out his personal phone and started to dial Kira Hitomiko’s number on it.

When she picked up the phone, Hiroto tried to calmly explain the situation.  
"I wouldn’t be surprised if he hates the day." Hitomiko answered. "Most of the orphans aren’t all too fond of their birthdays with the amount of bad memories they associate with it."  
Hiroto made a funny-sounding frustrated sound in response. He _knew_ she was right about it, but it still was annoying. “But in Sun Garden, everyone’s birthdays are still celebrated…”  
“Just on a small scale. Of course, your company donations help keep the orphanage running fine, but budget’s still tight since the _you know what_ stuff.”  
Hiroto sighed. "You're right. We should arrange a business meeting sometime to see if we can resol-“  
“No need. Hiroto, personal emotions towards Sun Garden and the professional image of the company should remain separate.”  
“Alright, then.” Hiroto still made a mental note to still see if he could increase the donations sometime. “Anyway, thank you for telling me about Masaki. I still feel so stupid for never thinking about it, though."  
"Hiroto... Well, maybe you should leave it to the football club to celebrate it with him, if he refuses to mention it to you. There's always next year."  
"No!" The redhead cried back into his phone. "I don't want to disappoint him!"  
“So stubborn.” Hitomiko sighed. “Well, good luck. It’s confidential if he calls me begging to come back here though.” She joked. Instead of any reassurance, that joke made Hiroto panic lightly again. “He wouldn’t do that! Would he? Has he done that yet?!”  
“Confidential!” Hitomiko answered before preparing to hang up the phone. “Anyway, I got my hands full here. Do come over sometime! Bye!”  
  
After the call, Hiroto tried to summarize it to Midorikawa, who somewhat clumsily had tried to get back to work again. He put the sorted stack of paper on Hiroto’s desk while letting the information get through. “So he probably has little positive experiences with birthdays, huh. And besides that, we still have no idea what to get him.”  
Hiroto shrugged with a light smile. “Hitomiko suggested we’d best leave it to the football club to know what he wants.”  
Midorikawa slid past the desk and dramatically dropped himself in Hiroto’s chair. “So what can _we_ do?”  
Hiroto smiled lightly as he watched Ryuuji let loose in the office for once. He leaned against his desk himself. “I guess we can make him his favorite meal- oh, wait, he probably won’t be home…”  
“We can order a cake? He sure does like strawberry cake, doesn’t he?”  
“Oh, that’s a plan. Can you order it while we go pick him up today or do we best head to a bakery ourselves tomorrow?”  
“—I’ll make a call. Don’t sweat it, Hiroto.”  
“Thanks, Ryuuji. You’re always so helpful.”  
“Anything for the Boss~” Midorikawa smiled as he pulled himself back up. “Speaking of which, time to get back to work. We already had enough on our plate today.” He grabbed the top half of the papers he sorted out earlier. “So these are the results from the financial department and the other half are some of the requests for new types of vacancies we should open up. I can go clean those out and discuss them with HR in the planned meeting tomorrow-“  
  
Once the workday finished and it was time to pick the teenager up from practice the two of them finally resumed their private life discussions as they headed to the parking lot.  
“So, what was Matsukaze’s plan actually?” Midorikawa inquired, realizing in their panic he had completely forgotten to ask.  
“Oh, right!” Hiroto responded as he realized the same. “Well, it was basically just pushing Masaki to join Matsukaze to his home. He suggested a couple things like pretending our car broke down or so.”  
“In order for that to seem legitimate, the car should be malfunctioning already.”  
  
It took less than a minute for them to remember there was an easy way for cars to make a strange sound by wrongly using the gears. Of course, that shouldn’t happen too often as it is bad for the car, but it would be enough to use once and pretend the car needed to be looked at soon. And then they would conveniently forget about it and the car would magically be broken down the day after. They remembered a couple ways of how to act, it wouldn’t be too hard.  
  
The traffic was horrible, so they ended up parking a little further away than usual. Midorikawa got out. “Maybe practice doing that thing?” He suggested before he left off to meet Kariya at the usual spot and guide him towards the car.  
  
When Midorikawa came back with Kariya, Hiroto had somehow managed to pull off the practice. He welcomed the two back in the car and went on with the usual questions. “How was practice?”  
“The usual.”  
Hiroto just stared at Kariya’s face until he’d elaborate. Kariya sighed. “I managed to block senpai’s Sidewinder using Hunter’s Net~” He said, smugly. “He should learn to do a stronger shot. I don’t think he ever scored with it.”  
“Now, now.” Hiroto laughed. “Good luck helping him develop one, then.” It was time for the plan so long there were no clear suspicions. Hiroto gently pressed the gas and the car started rolling. He reached for the gears, making sure to shift it in a way that _wasn’t_ supposed to be done at this time – from ‘drive’ to ‘park’ – and succeeded in purposely making this mistake.  
  
SSKKRKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTT.  
  
The car stopped abruptly, just before they left the parking lot.  
Hiroto flinched. Ryuuji flinched. Masaki shrieked. “What was THAT!?”  
Quickly shifting the gears back in the supposed place, Hiroto pretended to be slightly distraught. “That’s weird! I guess-“  
“Next car inspection is coming up again, isn’t it?” Midorikawa interrupted as he reached for the glovebox, pretending to look for the car’s papers.  
“It’s not breaking down, is it? I know I’ve been in weird vehicles – hell, one was driven by a bear – but I’m not ready to-“ Kariya ranted. Hiroto and Ryuuji quickly exchanged a glance. The plan worked.  
Hiroto restarted the car. “It’s doing just fine! No worries. We’ll have it looked at soon.”  
  
It was a quiet drive after Kariya stopped questioning the sound. Hiroto could’ve pulled it off similarly again, but on the road it would actually be dangerous. He could’ve done it again close to home, but that would be suspicious enough - that and he wouldn’t want to risk actually breaking his car down.  
Still, especially now was a good shot to ask the teenager about that one thing while he couldn’t run. Hiroto had decided he’d accept the fate of being the disappointment between the two. "Oh, Masaki?"  
"Mhmm?" the boy hummed from the back of the car. The tone was one that sounded interested but slightly bothered, like the child was focusing on messaging his friends on the Raimon messaging app (it was called something like Inazuma Link – Hiroto was bad with the names of those apps). Hiroto liked the sound of the humming though. He liked nearly any interaction with Masaki. After leaving Sun Garden, the many younger brother and sisters he had there only became just Ryuuji. Having Masaki around really let him live his big brother life again, even though he was practically more of a father to the teenager.  
“What’s it?” Masaki asked as he shoved his stuff aside and poked his head between the front seats to see if Hiroto really was daydreaming behind the wheel, or just too distracted by traffic to continue talking. It made Hiroto more nervous, so he only quickly glanced at the peeking face before focusing on the road again. “I’m… I’m really sorry I forgot, but when was your birthday again?”  
Masaki flinched lightly and dropped himself back in his seat. “Oh, you… forgot, huh.”  
He was fairly sure he never told them. Did they know? He started counting back. Maybe he could find a way around it… "On April fools." Masaki yawned, but suspiciously raising an eyebrow at Midorikawa who hadn’t even turned from the passenger’s seat to take a look at his face.  
“Huh?” Hiroto blinked, hoping Masaki couldn’t see his surprised face through the rear mirror. “Oh but.. wasn’t that day…?”  
“When we took you in…?” Midorikawa followed up. “Y-You should’ve told us it was that day!”  
They bought it? Kariya felt relieved. When that day would come around again, he’d just argue they could celebrate a family anniversary instead of focusing on just him, maybe. He huffed lightly. "Moving in was a present enough..."  
Because, honestly. It was. Away from the orphanage. The orphanage hadn’t been bad, per say – Hitomiko was wonderful – but he’d always been lonely there. And even while he doesn’t like admitting it, it’s wonderful to have a family again.  
  
Midorikawa sighed. Maybe it was better to be a bit more straightforward about it. “You didn’t want to celebrate your birthday?”  
Kariya flinched again. Wait, did Ryuuji catch this fast that he was lying? That green-haired jerk sure was good at that.  
He pulled his legs up on the seat and wrapped his arms around them, then muttered his honest response. “Yeah.”  
Hiroto hummed in response. “It’s okay if you don’t like your birthday, Masaki.”  
Kariya buried his face even further into his legs. The seat belt didn’t allow for any comfort in this position, but he didn’t care. “I don’t want to celebrate it. Can we drop this talk?”  
Midorikawa turned backwards to stare at the child on the back seat and his eyes were only met with a curled up Masaki. He felt a little sad hearing it directly from the child, but inside he felt a determination to still change it. But changing it wasn’t up to them for now – it was up to Tenma and the Raimon football club. Exactly the people who helped shape Masaki back into the person he may have been before he ended up at Sun Garden. The people who are shaping Masaki into a person who dares to trust others again. Hiroto and Midorikawa’s involvement would only be the dessert to this fateful new day.

Even after getting home, they indeed made sure to not talk about it, although behind Kariya’s back the two adults would try to discuss the situation using facial expressions alone. They could stop that by time night arrived and they all headed to bed.  
“Well… good thing we dropped the gift ideas.” Hiroto muttered as he checked the living room and closed their bedroom door, turning off the light. “He seems to really despise the idea, huh.”  
“We’ll change his mind.” Midorikawa responded, confidently. “Or, well, we’ll leave it up to the Raimon players. But after that, we’ll still get him that cake to show our appreciation.”  
Hiroto sat himself down on the bed, putting his glasses aside on the bedtable. He got under the covers after that. “I hope he’ll appreciate their efforts.”  
“I think he will. He’s bad with saying so, but I’m sure he’ll be glad they think of him.”

Their whispers continued for a bit until they both fell asleep.  
  
It was the day. The guardians were so troubled trying to act like they didn’t know what kind of day it was. Everything had to be perfectly average – and boy is it hard to make things seem as average and normal as ever when doing that on purpose. Even Masaki caught on that there was something so incredibly stiffening about the way the two adults acted during breakfast. “You’re both terrible liars, actually.” Kariya said, pulling the spoon out of his mouth. “What are you two up to…?”  
“Work,” Midorikawa huffed. “I thought we mentioned we’re having an important guest today? Business relations and all that.”  
“Ah.” Kariya decided to at least act like he believed it while he stuck his spoon back into the cup to grab another handful of cereal with it.  
  
To Hiroto and Ryuuji, it was a very frustrating work day.  
Masaki just wished it was a day like any other all day, but here and there something just felt _off._  
He got especially annoyed when he saw a phone call from Hiroto at the usual time he’d come pick him up from school. Usually Hiroto would text his location or the like. “Sorry,” Hiroto said through the phone. “Remember that weird sound from the car yesterday? It broke down right after we arrived at work.”  
“You kept driving in it!?” Kariya shrieked back at the phone. “Idiots.”  
“Now, now.” Hiroto laughed. “Look, Ryuuji is headed to the garage with it and you know I can’t show myself too much in public. It’d take a while for me to come over. I don’t think you could stay so long at school…”  
“No, of course the school grounds will close if I stay here for hours to come.”  
Tenma butted in. “Kariya, you can’t go home? Want to come over to my place for a bit?”  
Hiroto gasped lightly in the phone, pretending to be surprised by the offer. “Is that Matsukaze? You should go, Masaki. We’ll pick you up there later, okay? See you!” And he hung up the phone as soon as he could.  
Tenma put a big smile on his own face. “Feel free to come play with me and Sasuke! I think he misses Kariya, too!”  
Kariya cocked his head in disbelief. “He does?”  
Tenma nodded excessively and grabbed Kariya’s arms. “Yeah, let’s go! It’ll be great! Shinsuke and Aoi were coming over too today, but I sent them ahead to Riverside already. I don’t think they’d mind Kariya joining!”

And so, the afternoon passed, with a massive surprise party held at the Kogarashi Manor. A party full of food, super embarrassing songs and a handful tiny gifts like keychain straps of some old Inazuma Japan players. One of the attending teenager’s parents even brought Kariya nearly home. Nearly, because he didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing where he lived, so he faked the address and just walked the final part to his actual housing. Once he entered the hallway, he was enthusiastically greeted by his guardians running into it. “Welcome home, Masaki!”  
Both smiled at him expectantly, figuring out whether they were able to sing him a “happy birthday!” type of song even though it was already late into the night. The boy instead looked down at the floor and snarled. “Which,” Kariya clenched his fist as he stood troubled in the hallway. “Which of you told them.”  
Both Hiroto and Midorikawa were shocked to see the response. They locked eyes with each other, then looked back to Masaki. “Neither of us. We didn’t know it was your birthday until Matsukaze called to ask for our help.”  
“Tenma…” Kariya found himself shaking a little.  
Hiroto attempted a defense for the little football enthusiast. “He… he probably found out through Endou if he looked through your sign up form for the football team. Surely they’re keeping a proper record of everyone’s birthdays in there. Masaki, are you angry they wanted to celebrate with you?”  
“I don’t want this…” he muttered as he started kicking his shoes out and refusing to even put on slippers, dragged his feet through the hallway in an attempt to get past the two guardians. Hiroto wanted to stop him, but Midorikawa elbowed him in an attempt of saying ‘wait’.  
The teenager slouched himself into the living room and his eyes were quickly drawn to the little box on the table. The pressure he put on his fists loosened and he stood still, staring at it. The adults followed him into the room. Midorikawa laughed awkwardly. “... We understand if you don’t really want to celebrate your birthday, but we still wanted to do something for you, so we got you a strawberry cake…”  
  
“Ah, but you’re probably full after that surprise party, huh?” Hiroto laughed, just as awkwardly as he stroked Kariya’s arm before grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him along to the couch. “Come on, sit down. What drink do you want with it?”  
Masaki, quiet and baffled, let himself be guided even though all he wanted to do now was lock himself up in his room. But knowing these two, they wouldn’t leave him alone even if he tried. “Juice.” He stated quietly as he kept staring at the cake.  
  
No further words were exchanged until the drinks were placed on the table and Midorikawa had grabbed a handful of utensils to serve the cake.  
  
“Why…” Kariya pouted, trying his best to give them an angry look.  
“Because you _deserve_ a wonderful birthday, Masaki.” Midorikawa responded sweetly. “Wasn’t it fun to hang with Matsukaze and your other friends?”  
Hiroto smiled too. “Did you get any fun gifts?”  
“Why!” Kariya repeated. “I said I didn’t want to celebrate it, so why!”  
“Well,” Hiroto disregarded his own question to answer Masaki’s. “We know what it’s like to have a lot of lonely birthdays. We don’t want you to have one so long we’re here to take care for you.”  
“Nothing like one good birthday to cancel out all the bad ones.” Midorikawa said, on a tone reserved for most of his proverbs. He finished cutting the cake into six pieces, having three of them served on a cute plate each. He sat himself down on the couch. The teenager remained pouting, but it wasn’t hard to tell his lips were slightly trembling – revealing he felt completely seen through.  
“C’mere.” Midorikawa said as he pulled the teenager on his lap, into a hug. Masaki, feeling weak after that whole day of attention being on him, let himself be pulled along and rested his head on the green-haired man’s shoulders. He cursed to himself to not cry the moment he felt tears well up. This was the worst. Crying is the worst. He hiccupped a near sob the moment Midorikawa started gently caressing his back. “Masaki, I really hope you had a wonderful birthday together with your friends.”  
Hiroto put his coffee cup down on the dresser table and seated himself closer so he could comfortably ruffle the teenager’s hair. “I hope it made up for all the bad birthdays so far.”  
Masaki’s lips trembled and he scolded himself for being _this_ close to fully opening up to his two guardians. He tried to inhale some air, but instead another sob got in the way and he could feel that the tears started to roll. Holding on to Midorikawa even tighter – although accidentally maybe a little too tight, but Ryuuji did a fine job handling the nails that were pressing into his shoulders – he quietly sobbed on. Midorikawa and Hiroto gently smiled at each other in understanding to let the child make sense of his emotions.  
  
As Ryuuji kept caressing Masaki’s back, he quietly started to sing. “Happy birthday to you.” Hiroto smiled and joined in, singing along.  
  
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Masaki, happy birthday to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I must say the most fun part of writing this was probably the long discussion on whether Hiroto would drive stick or automatics and if automatic cars could produce as terrible sounds as stick when gears are shifted wrongly. Truly educational. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! ♥


End file.
